[ExI] flds raid, was general repudiation...

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 5:55 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

>
>  "Oh, but they're only *children*!", the cry will then go out.
>  "They don't know what is best for them, their parents don't
>  know what is best for them, and their friends and neighbors
>  don't know what is best for them!
>
>  "But *WE* know what is best for them, and we have the
>  men, badges, dogs, and guns to prove it!"

### Lee, again we agree. The whole FLDS mess has nothing to do with
prevention of child abuse, AFAIK. Children in polygamous families are
not more likely to suffer physical or mental abuse than children from
the general population. The do grow up to be well-adjusted, fully
functional adults. There is not a shred of trustworthy evidence (that
I am aware of)  to the contrary.

I am absolutely sure that the hundreds of children forcibly kidnapped
by the Texan government will suffer significant emotional trauma. I am
horrified and filled with anger at the thought that their parents are
forcibly separated from their children. I am really, really angry.

I know that the majority of the adults involved are religious nuts. I
am also sure that, no matter what the media and the government try to
say, these people are not, in their majority, intentionally inflicting
unwarranted suffering on their children. Some time ago, the former
consideration may have weighed heavily in my assessment of the
situation. Now, it is only the latter that is operable. In other
words, when I was younger I may have let my atheism trump my
libertarianism but no longer (even though, of course, I am just as
much an atheist as ever since age 7).

There can be no justification for violence against innocent children
and their parents. Not "they are breaking the law", nor "they are
religious nuts", nor "they have more wives than I do", nor "17 is too
young to have children", nor "they are just breeding more religious
nuts". By the moral law, FLDS cultists should be untouchable, unless
they commit violence - beating, imprisonment, rape. If all they do is
preaching to each other (and that *is* how they maintain their
communes), an honest person cannot send thugs to smack them down. If
you have a bone with them, try to do some preaching.

The true reason for the raid is not the desire to "save the children".
The real reason is male envy, the feeling that the FLDS males have it
too good, that they shouldn't be able to sleep with 2 or 3 or 10
women. This sentiment permeates the law enforcement and legal
apparatus, composed mostly of males, many of them of the
high-testosterone, dominant variety. For PR reasons they blather about
children but that's just self-deception and a smokescreen.

If I was a Texas taxpayer, I would be furious to know that my money
pays for the cops to go around cock-blocking religious nuts. What a
stupid world.

Rafal